


Between the Gray, In the Purple

by theaberrantwritergirl



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Politics, American Politics, Angst, Conservative Rey, Devoted Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Drama, F/M, Family, Fluff, Hook-Up, Humor, Liberal Ben, Morning Sickness, Oral Sex, Political Campaigns, Political Rivals, Pregnancy, Romance, Sex, Slight Discussion of Abortion, Slight enemies to lovers, Smut, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:09:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25234447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theaberrantwritergirl/pseuds/theaberrantwritergirl
Summary: Rey Palpatine and Kylo Ren are political rivals running for Congress to represent District 28 in Florida. One little problem? They've been hooking up for the past year. One big problem? She's pregnant.Short Reylo fic for RushRush4DReylo. Political but not. Relationship-focused.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 23
Kudos: 360





	1. Gray

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RushReylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RushReylo/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I know a little about American politics but not much. I researched as much as I could, but the rest is my imagination. However, this fic is more focused on the relationships than the politics.
> 
> Thank you to [benduo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/benduo/pseuds/benduo) for brainstorming with me on and beta'ing for parts of this short lil ditty. Your help is so appreciated!

“ **Had I only been able and willing to see the world in shades of grey, rather than black and white.”** _**— Juventud** _ **by Vanessa Blakeslee**

* * *

**Chapter 1: Gray**

They’re thirty minutes in when _it_ happens for the millionth time that week. 

Rey takes a sip of water and leans on her podium. If she just breathes and focuses, the feeling will fade. _Focus on him, on Ben._

He stands a few feet away at his own podium in a black suit with a brilliant navy-blue tie and an American-flag pendant. His long, black hair gelled back. How many times has she run her hands through it, buried her nose in it, his lips whispering pieces of poetry or lyrics against her skin...

She tries to search his amber, familiar eyes, but the lights blind her, too bright. Her head throbs. The timer buzzes again. 

“Ms. Palpatine, are you going to answer?”

“I, um, what was the question again?”

The moderator repeats it, but Rey’s ears ring. Maybe it’s the heat of the lights or nerves, but her new anti-nausea pills aren’t working—at the most _convenient_ of times. 

“I… I think I need to—” 

The small crowd goes silent. In a second, she retches onto the podium and flies off the stage; in the next, she continues throwing up on the ground out of sight. Her doctor had sounded so confident when she wrote the script for her anti-nausea medication. So _sure_ that this would fix her discomfort. Rey had gone into this debate tonight with her bun high, feeling better than she had in weeks since she found out. 

Rose, her assistant, hands her a cold water and some crackers, patting her back and reassuring her that everything is okay. The election is in four weeks, and Rey can’t even get through a simple debate without puking her guts out. As if she doesn’t have enough stereotypes to fight as an immigrant woman running for congress in Chandrila, Florida. She imagines the headlines now—how she can’t handle the _heat_ of a small debate. And Ben was good tonight, too—better than good. He prepared with facts, beyond his usual tactics of labeling and appealing to emotions. Leia won’t be happy. The Republican Party is falling behind in every poll across the country. Even a little seat in the House matters. 

And if it can’t get any worse? In an hour, the video of Rey’s incident goes viral—spilled chunks dribbling across the stage as she runs. _Only in Florida,_ it’s deemed by one news media outlet. Rey sits in her SUV outside of the community center in a shaded, obscure area, AC blasting, trying to calm down enough to drive. Rose keeps offering, but Rey won’t let her. She failed. And now she’s going to be a bloody _meme._ She pities the person that has to clean up her regurgitated tofu-turkey sandwich for lunch. 

“It’s not alright!” Rey says to her, a little too loudly. “Chandrila is part of a swing district. I can’t fuck up. They didn’t even get to hear what Leia and I had in mind for healthcare reform. It’s a disaster.”

“The press isn’t _that_ bad. One commentator said you are brilliantly universal for conservatives. Like even he wants to puke when he hears Ben speak. Really positive, right?” Rose shows her the video on her phone—some conservative newscaster laughing at her expense. _“In a way, doesn’t she represent us? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve listened to Hillary Clinton speak and lost my lunch.”_

Rey slides on her sunglasses and blasts a Slayer album. 

Ben is interviewed live about the situation—calm and calculated as always in front of a camera. They watch on Rose’s phone. “It looks like the debate will have to be rescheduled or canceled entirely,” the interviewer says. “What do you make of Rey’s incident?”

“It was probably my face. Did Fox News already make that joke?”

Someone knocks on the glass. They both jolt upright. 

“Let me in before they see.”

Rey almost thinks about slamming on the gas but unlocks the doors instead. The press doesn’t usually follow their every move, especially with this being a small event, but it’s a risk. Ben jumps in the back, out of breath. “You feeling okay? I can drive.”

Rose flashes her a longing look but exits the SUV. Ben climbs over the console, and Rey speeds off. 

“Your place or mine?” she asks.

“Probably mine, judging by the current topic in the news. To be safe. I can take care of you.”

His smug tone makes her eye twitch, as does his comment. _I can take care of you._ Like they are in a relationship. So she pulls over in a secluded, wooded part of town, unable to hold in her news any longer.

“I’m pregnant.” She says it like that—emotionless, cold—as soon as the car stops, no breath or pause before. She digs through her purse and holds out a sonogram photo in front of his face. “It’s yours.”

He takes it tentatively, brown eyes wide. Silent. 

“Some good bit of fun, right?” she says, mocking him. It’s what he said before, at the beginning of their hooking up. Last year, she’d watched the democratic primaries, praying that _he_ wouldn’t be her opponent. He was funded by her grandfather. They’d known of each other for years, even before he changed his name from Ben Solo to Kylo Ren and cut contact with his family. But he’d won, and Rey drained two full bottles of wine the night the news broke. They met formally again at a local festival, got drunk, and that was it. “ _Let’s just have fun, yeah?” he’d whispered into her ear when she invited him to come home with her. “Take the edge off this...” He leaned in further. “Stupid fucking election.”_

“I thought you were on birth control.”

“I am. Or I was. I may have missed a few doses with the election and the meetings and…” When he doesn’t respond, she continues, “I always remembered to take it, just sometimes I ran a bit late.

“You sure it’s mine?”

Rey rolls her eyes. “Of course I’m sure. We agreed to be exclusive, and I _did_ tell you to pull out last time.”

Ben laughs. “Pull-out game so weak I make the Duggar family look good. You know what the headlines will be like when this gets out. The press is ruthless.” His eyes narrow at the photo. “Is that… a second? Uh?”

This time Rey takes a deep breath. “Yes, I’m, well, I’m having twins. Fraternal.”

He rubs the back of his neck. “Fuck.” And _there’s_ the response she’s been looking for. 

“Surprise!” she exclaims, sarcastically. “I’m about eight weeks now.”

“So that’s why you were sick, huh.” 

“Yes.”

“Great. We'll be the new 20 Kids and Counting.”

“Piss off. Like your constituents would let you.”

“You could still, you know…” 

Rey can’t help it—the laugh bursts from her lips. “Imagine what they would say to that one if it got leaked? _Immigrant, conservative candidate gets an abortion, angering her supporters. Kylo Ren wins in a landslide._ Clever advice, but I couldn’t. It feels wrong.”

Ben chuckles sardonically, purses his lips. “It exists for situations like this. Do you really want to have my baby? What if it looks like me?”

“Babies,” Rey corrects with another laugh, stomach churning. “I don’t know. I’ve never really wanted to have children.” At five, she’d been abandoned by her mother when she overdosed, left in the care of her pimp in the middle of Westminster. She vowed to never have children. She’s supposed to be the role model for millions of young women—a conservative, young immigrant, the new face of the Republican Party. That’s what they deemed her on Fox News. But look at her now—twenty-eight and pregnant with her rival’s babies in the middle of an election.

“What do you need me to do?”

“I…” Her vision blurs. “I don’t know. I always thought, if I _did_ have children, I’d be married. I’d have someone that loves me… oh, I don’t know. You don’t care about any of this. You don’t really know me. No one does. I’m just another marionette doll for an ideology with money.”

“But I do.” Ben finds her hand, fingers feather-light like fine stationery. “We’ll figure something out. Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Rey mumbles, snatching her hand away. What did she expect—an offer of marriage? He’s the up-and-coming golden boy for the Democrats, and she’s the immigrant woman card for the Republicans. Where would love fit in with any of that?

She drives Ben back to the community center and goes home. Alone.

* * *

Kylo sips a Hennessy and Coke, relishing in the light feeling after two or three, and scrolls through his twitter feed. The sounds of the after party for the Democrat rally fade with Rey’s recent tweet. Something about his speech tonight—how he incited more hate, more _us vs them—_ the dichotomy of conservatives vs liberals.

 _Sorry I don't make excuses for white, racist cis men,_ he replies in a retweet. In a few minutes, he has about 322 likes and 106 retweets. Job well done.

 _So I’m a racist, white cis male now?_ Rey texts him privately. 

_Just the rhetoric—you know how it is._ He chuckles, pulls out the sonogram photo Rey gave him two weeks ago. Two little black and white blobs encased in grainy lines. He’s going to be a… _father._ Kylo remembers Han, how he was always away on some business trip, and puts the photo back into his suit jacket pocket. 

_How are you_ feeling? he writes.

Her response is instant: Still _sick. How are you? Did you see the press on your speech tonight?_

All around him TVs blare his tired, disheveled face as he introduced another congress candidate to the audience. They say he hasn’t been himself since the debate two weeks ago. After a few minutes, the reporters move on to something more interesting than Kylo’s lackluster speech and weird facial features. They’ll likely be back at it when they think the public has forgotten for two seconds too long. 

Hux plops down in a lounge chair next to him. “Ren.” He nods. “Excellent work with the speech. A delight, truly.”

Kylo scoffs. “They only made three jokes about my face tonight.”

“I hope it didn’t hurt your pride too much.”

“I’m in politics.” Kylo finishes off his drink. “What pride?”

They sit in silence for a few moments before Hux reaches for the remote and turns the volume up, smiling. A gossip channel. _Rey’s face flashes across the screen, the moment she hurled onto her podium. The reporters sit at a round table, looking at the footage._

_“—and now there are photos of her leaving an OBGYN office,” one reporter says. “A source says she’s pregnant and considering abortion.”_

_“Isn’t she running as a Republican in District 28?” one replies._

_“An unmarried, Republican immigrant—getting an abortion.”_

Kylo grits his teeth. “What have you done?”

“Secured the election for you. You’re welcome.” Hux pops the top to Ren’s cognac and takes a swig—straight from the bottle. “I did leave out one important detail, however, but I’ll release that after you win.”

“She’s worked so hard for this. How could you do this?”

“Careful, careful, Ren. Keep your voice down before people start to question… things. Like your loyalty.”

“What. Did. You. Do?”

“Well, you see, people talk. I can get people to talk. It was a shame when they chose you, of all people, to represent District 28. I’ve lived in Chandrila all my life. Her assistant was a _bloody fountain_ of information. You’re also not… discreet.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a few photos in a yellow envelope—some from months ago, others when Kylo met Rey in her SUV after the debate. 

“What do you want?”

Snoke stands over them, a poised smile on his scarred face. He pats Kylo on the back. “We’ve got it in the bag!”

Slowly, Hux places the photos back into his suit jacket pocket with a smirk. “Yes, we do. But careful we don’t choke on our… aspirations, yes?”

* * *

By morning, the news blows up. CNN, MSNBC, Fox News—every channel Rey turns to has her make-up free face leaving her OBGYN’s office. 

“I’m running for bloody congress!” she shouts at the screen. “One little district! Why do you care?!”

Twitter is even worse—both leftists _and_ conservatives attack her for her supposed abortion consideration. _When you’re so anti-abortion that you get one for yourself,_ one tweet reads, complete with the Kermit tea meme. _Hypocrite. Liar._ Rey throws her phone across the room. Paces from her kitchen to living room, tears blurring her vision. Picks up her phone again, calls Rose.

“What did you do?” she demands. “You were the only person that knew _anything!”_

“I… I…”

It takes a few minutes of desperate prodding before Rose tells the truth. “So you know, Ben’s assistant? I may have, you know, have a thing with him, and um…”

“YOU’RE SEEING HIM _AND_ YOU LEAKED IT TO HIM?!”

“Not intentionally, I swear. And I said _nothing_ about abortion! I swear! I didn’t think anyone would care this much.”

“Chandrila is part of the largest district in Florida!”

After Rey smashes the _end call_ button, she rings Ben, in tears. “Did you have anything to do with this?”

“What’re you talking about? Of course not.”

“Give me an honest answer! I’m on every fucking channel!”

“Why would I do that?”

Rey thinks of his cold expression when she told him she was pregnant, how he suggested she get an abortion. “You never wanted this. All fun, right?”

“It was never like that.”

 _“You_ suggested abortion, and now it’s magically part of the narrative?!”

Ben breathes out. “I had nothing to do with it. It’s a long story. Hux, my assistant, knows about us… I… wanted to do this formally, but… I was gonna ask you, after the election.”

“Ask me what?” Rey’s stomach rolls. 

“About _us.”_

* * *

They met underneath dying, autumn sunlight nine years ago, at a party her grandfather had thrown. The trees burst in brilliant reds and yellows and oranges. Every fall, Upstate New York shimmered like a multi-faceted, multi-colored gem. 

He found her, there in the garden, far away from everyone, among marigolds and asters, the sun drowning in the sky. 

Rey was nineteen, a freshman, doing a degree in political science, and Ben was already working as a lawyer in Florida. Always ahead of her. Her grandfather had pointed that out in their introduction; to him, Rey would always be the orphan girl with the father that had abandoned his family and the prostitute mother in the UK. Never good enough. She’d felt that in their first introduction, when her father got sick, and again, in their second, when he offered to pay for her education in the US. His eyes had trailed over her like dirt or a careful pawn he could manipulate to suit his needs.

Ben was a public defender, working as Snoke’s assistant on the side for his campaign for the Senate representing Florida. He won, too, that year and thanked Ben in his acceptance speech. 

“What are you doing out here alone?” he asked, startling her. 

“I could ask you the same. Kylo, right?"

“Uh, Ben, actually. I only go by Kylo for political reasons. I changed it a while back because your grandfather suggested it.”

The hours passed in poetry and songs, serious one minute, a joke the next. He knew about calligraphy and philosophy and British history, but he was humble about it, sincere. He’d read Ayn Rand, despite being liberal, blaming it on the conservative family he’d cut off, the expensive education at a private Christian grammar school he’d attended in Chandrila. Rey chewed her fingernails; Ben didn’t mind. 

By the end of the night, he kissed her on that white bench in the garden, the world dark and silent around them. And also by the end of the night, her grandfather gave her a lecture on dating. She was a Palpatine; she needed to focus on school, then on career in law and politics. He’d planned her life like he planned his funded candidates in the next election. Rey argued with him, like she did on every policy and social action, and soon she was reading _Atlas Shrugged_ and identifying as a Classical Liberal. Her grandfather didn’t approve. However, she did focus on school like he asked, pushed Ben out of her mind, and ignored his texts and messages on Facebook. 

That festival. If only she hadn’t gone to that festival in Chandrila a year ago. 

“What about us?” Rey demands on the phone, fighting the urge to throw up.

“Can we go out to dinner and talk… about this?”

“With the whole nation watching?"

The line crackles with Ben’s inhale. “You wanna come over tonight?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is gifted to a wonderful person, friend, and writer, [RushRush4DReylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RushRush4DReylo/pseuds/RushRush4DReylo), for her birthday. She and I met on Reylo server on Discord, I revealed I had written NAS in a random conversation, and that sparked a writing partnership and friendship that has been amazing. She helps so much with the original revision of NAS by beta reading for me, being completely encouraging, and giving me a kick when I need it. So, for her birthday, I wanted to write a combination of the subjects we write about. Rush, you deserve all the happiness in the world!
> 
> Thanks for reading! Thoughts, praise, constructive criticism? Leave a comment below or contact/follow me on Tumblr: [theaberrantwritergirl](https://theaberrantwritergirl.tumblr.com/)


	2. Purple

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   
>  _Ben brushes fingers up her arm, considering. His hand trails up to her neck, to her face, with delicate sweeps. He cups her cheek, traces the kanji character for love, 愛, across her skin. “Did you know I took two years of Japanese?”_   
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have art for this fic! The opening image was lovingly created by [benduo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/benduo/pseuds/benduo) who is a 110% amazing, enormously talented lil hooman through and through. <3 IT'S BEAUTIFUL AND ILY.

**“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it." — _The Color Purple_ by Alice Walker**

* * *

**Chapter 2: Purple**

Ben straightens the cloth placemats, turns down the lights, and makes sure the non-alcoholic sparkling grape juice is chilling in the fridge. It needs to be perfect for her, especially considering the stress she’s gone through in the last month. _Babies._ He freezes at the fridge, staring at the ultrasound photo attached to the metal. Black and white blending around the two tiny ovals, and between them, the gray—it morphs and fuses.

When she knocks, he races to the door, throwing it open. Purple. A deep amethyst that makes the green in her eyes stand out. It’s the dress she wore at the festival the day their hooking up started a year ago. A-line and modest—the neckline rests on her collarbone, the length to her knees. 

She follows his eyes, smooths the cotton out. “It still fits me, but not well.”

“No.” Ben shakes his head. “It’s beautiful… you’re…” 

“Don’t. We agreed.”

“Sure. Come in.”

Tentatively, Rey steps inside. “So I had my lawyer draw up some paperwork on the babies, and your rights to them—how we will navigate coparenting, if that’s what you—” Her mouth drops open at the candles and dish placements. “This is… romantic?”

“I told you, I want to talk about us.”

She chews on her lip, in thought. “We agreed—there can’t be an _us.”_

“I made no such agreement. We said no _labels._ There’s a difference.” He pulls out her chair and gestures for her to sit. “Best seat in the house—memory foam padding.”

“Are you saying my arse is bony?”

Ben smiles, lets his eyes wander down her figure. “Not at all. I want you to be comfortable.”

She sits; he serves her—water and a starter salad with olive oil, a dash of salt, and italian seasoning, the way she likes it. But when he tries to serve her the sparkling grape juice, she hands the glass back to him. “You know I can’t have alcohol.”

“Non-alcoholic.” He shows her the bottle resting on the counter. 

For some reason, _that_ makes tears well up in her eyes. “You _are_ serious, aren’t you?”

He bends down on his knee to look at her, wiping her cheeks with his thumbs. “What gave me away?”

She laughs—a beautiful, lilted sound reverberating off the hollow walls of his apartment. “But we can’t… what would my grandfather… your mother… the media, think?”

“Probably not good things,” he whispers before pulling her into a kiss. Their first in over a month. He lingers, tugs at her lips with his teeth, deepens it, tongue against hers. She tastes like parsley and salt and tears. It brings back those images—her sitting in the garden, far away from the party, the noise and the lights nine years ago. Alone. Somehow she is always alone. It was like that for him with his family, being the only liberal within two generations. His mother had groomed him to run under her, as a _Republican,_ what she’d intended for his life. _The anger, the nightmares, the aching of nights spent alone with a nanny._ They weren’t there for any of it. _His father leaving on business trips, kissing Leia goodbye._ He was always kissing her goodbye. Study, sleep, pray they would come home. By the time he was thirteen, Ben gave up wishing or praying or hoping. And when Leia finally wanted something from him, to carry on her legacy, Ben had already spent years thinking for himself. Read Hemingway, then Marx. He graduated from Harvard with his bachelor’s; it was easier to cut his parents off, then. He’d embraced the identity of _Kylo Ren_ and the viewpoints he’d always stood for. Meanwhile, Rey was having the opposite awakening, his in reverse, alone on a bench. 

Rey pulls back and looks into his eyes. “But I’m a racist, white conservative, remember?”

“Our relationship isn’t a tweet or a campaign ad,” he replies with a shrug. “For the record, you did get a key fact wrong in our last debate, but I’ll let it slide.”

“Oh, yes, please educate me on facts. You spend 90% of your campaigning calling someone a name.”

“Your grandfather approves.”

“He approves of anything that will make him money and keep his backed candidates in.”

Ben kisses her again, harder. Dinner passes by with her laughter, the nausea retreating for the night. He teases her about her blunders and opinions, and she, in turn, makes fun of him for being _so_ dramatic. Sometimes this banter causes them to fight, but under the candlelight, with her eyes dancing in the warm orange, Ben can only smile. 

Dinner finished, he gently lifts her up, bridal style, and carries her to his bedroom. Slowly. Nothing like the first time they had sex underneath the stars, on a blanket, after the festival. That first time had been drunk and sloppy. He places her on his bed, fingers lifting up her shirt, trailing his lips across her skin. Goosebumps rise in his path. When he reaches her face, he realizes she’s crying again. 

“What’s the matter?”

“I…” Her face scrunches up. “For two weeks, I waited to tell you. The media blew up for some stuuupid reason, and when I told you, it was like you didn’t want it. When you suggested abortion.”

“I was processing. I’m sorry.”

“You _know_ how I feel about it, and it’s just…” She exhales. “With the election and Leia’s pushing and the news getting falsely leaked… I’ve just never felt so alone.” 

Ben brushes fingers up her arm, considering. His hand trails up to her neck, to her face, with delicate sweeps. He cups her cheek, traces the kanji character for _love,_ 愛, across her skin. “Did you know I took two years of Japanese?”

“You did?”

“Mm.”

“Are you writing something in it now?”

He continues tracing the same character over and over, lips hovering against hers, remembering her on that bench, in the garden nine years ago. “You’re not alone,” he whispers.

“We can’t.” Rey breaks away, eyelashes fluttering. “We would… lose everything.”

“Maybe.” His fingers find her stomach. “But haven’t we already?”

“We’re political opposites!”

“Are we?”

“We disagree on economic policy and—”

“But we agree on the problems.”

She plays with her fingers in her lap. “Sometimes, sure. But what would everyone think?”

He smiles at that, loops her hand with his, pushing her against the bed with desperate kisses. “Is agreeing on politics all there is?” Han and Leia’s fights—the screaming that came maybe once every other year. Usually something to do with Leia’s campaign efforts. They weren’t _opposites_ , but they certainly didn’t agree on everything. “You know how Leia leans,” he says. “But my dad’s registered Democrat. You know that?” 

She shakes her head, mouth slightly open in astonishment.

“Yeah, and still married. Over forty years, now.” He runs a hand up her dress, finding her breasts. “So tell me how we can’t make it work?”

“I don’t want to do this just for the babies.”

“You know this would’ve happened anyway.”

“You are _so_ cocky and sure of yourself.”

“No.” Ben shrugs, hands out. “Bad pull-out game.”

The tension breaks with Rey’s smile. She pulls off his shirt, his pants, his boxers, hastily, coming in for kisses again. He drowns in her skin, hands tangling in her hair. He doesn’t think he can get any harder, but he does, _oh_ he does, when she hovers above him, naked, breasts pale under the white fluorescents. And he certainly doesn’t think he can when she cups his dick, squeezes it, gliding up and down, lubing him up with the bottle on the nightstand. 

He glances down at the mound of hair between her legs and pushes a finger into her. Her walls pulse around him, the delicate flesh, the heat. He wants to lose himself in it, make her his. As if she can read his thoughts, she turns around—inverted, sixty-nine style. 

When her lips close around him, he gasps. “Fuck, you’ve never gone down on me before. Never done this.”

“Also never carried a man’s children before,” she says, between strokes of her mouth. 

He thinks of her smile, the ways her face transforms when someone calls her beautiful or anything by MARINA plays on repeat, and laps at her clit and grabs her bottom, kneading it. She moans. He sucks harder, teasing her entrance. Her taste—he loses himself in it. He’s gone down on her a few times, but never with this much passion. He relishes in her moans, the way her body shakes when he flicks his tongue across her clit. Meanwhile, his cock glides in her mouth, hitting the back of her throat. Just when he thinks he’s about to cum, when he can feel the urge in his cock matching his moans, she stops. His dick flies from her lips. 

Rey turns around and snuggles into his chest, mouth at his ear. “If you’re serious… if you really are…” She pulls back. “No one’s ever made _love_ to me before.”

Ben almost chuckles. “Never?” He kisses her cheeks, her ears. “Not even during our first time?” That first time, under the stars, the prior voices of the festival long drowned out in grunts and sweaty skin. 

“How could you make love to me? You didn’t know me, not really.”

愛。愛。愛。He traces the character over and over against the top of her hand. “Oh, but I did. I do.” Her slips a finger inside her. She is dripping, _pulsing._ It takes the breath from his lungs. “But maybe…” He lines himself up to her entrance, pushes the tip in. A few blissful inches. “I can show you again? If it’s okay with the babies?” He teases her entrance, running his cock up and down her slit. 

She takes him in her hands, urging him in deeper. One more inch. Two. He pushes into her heat, mouth opening, eyes squeezed shut. Slick, no resistance. The way she takes him—the softness of her walls. He moans; she moans. He pounds into her with careful but hard strokes, mindful of the babies. 

“Haven’t I always fucked you like this?” he asks as her hazel eyes dance beneath him. “Made love to you?” 

She moans again. “We’ve never called it that. _Love.”_

“Haven’t wanted to fuck another woman, not like this, in nine years, not since I met you,” he spits out in between grunts. “Do you know that?” He pulls her hips closer so that there is no space between them, no air or breath without his breath. “What the fuck _are_ titles?” 

_Conservative, liberal, husband, lover, hookup?_ What matters with her beneath him, eyelashes fluttering in pleasure? When she laughs at his shitty jokes or pulls him into a kiss? _The ultrasound photo, the grey._ What does any of that political bullshit matter with his _babies_ inside her? 

They rise—her first, her hand between her legs, walls fluttering and pulsing around him. It’s too much. His thrusts morph into pleasure. He slips, bursts into her, one twitch of his cock at a time. After a month of no contact, it’s like learning how to speak again. Like giving his first speech. The rush of words that tumble from his mouth with little thought. Rehearsed but not. Full of meaning with little on the surface. 

When the euphoria passes, he collapses next to her on the bed, panting. “Does that count?”

She snuggles into his neck, her fingers playing with his cum leaking from her entrance. The room goes silent save for their breaths. 

“What should we do?” she asks.

 _Hux._ He would use the information about him and Rey at any point. Against her hair, Ben explains it to her—how Hux had found out and leaked it to the media. And when she moves to the bathroom to clean up, he continues, “I don’t want to give him the power. We shouldn’t have to lie about what we are.”

“And what _are_ we?”

_Republican. Democrat. Liberal. Conservative._

“Together,” he replies.

* * *

When the news breaks three days later, Rey is clutching Ben’s hand, the TV lights dancing across their faces. 

Whatever news channel they flip to, the headlines are similar, the reporters visibly shocked— _“Kylo Ren turns himself in about his intimate relationship with his political rival, Rey Palpatine, and she confirms. This… I’ve never seen this happen before.”_ Conservatives hail her as a champion for unborn lives when she confirms the pregnancy despite not being married to Kylo. It’s more of a scandal because of their political standings as rivals, with the election in three weeks. However, they do express worry over her condition for the next eight or so months and how well she’ll be able to do her job if she’s elected. For liberals, some regard Kylo as _sleeping with the enemy,_ which by association, makes him a racist, too. They laugh at those tweets.

Rey and Ben silence their phones when they simultaneously ring with calls and messages. Rey gets texts from Rose and people she hasn’t talked to in _years._ Leia calls at least ten times before Rey turns off her device completely. 

After they’d had dinner and sex three nights ago, Ben explained his plan. It would jeopardize their careers and reputations in their parties, but Ben stressed its importance—Hux was going to leak the information anyway, so why _not_ be honest and have it come from them? They won’t have to live in fear of being outed as a couple or losing the respect of their constituents; it will be done. And with pregnancy, twins, and eventual, child sharing and swapping, how _could_ they hide it? 

“Face the consequences now, no worrying later,” Ben said. 

“Ohhhh, look who’s using logic.”

He lingered on her lips. “Maybe you’re turning me.”

“Oh?”

“Not a chance.”

They both laughed.

That plan is playing out smoothly—or roughly—Rey isn’t sure with how much the news goes viral. But Ben’s right—why live a lie?

He takes her on the couch. Nothing held back, whispering his feelings against her hair. 

* * *

Over the next few days and weeks, their world blows up. Both of their teams do damage control—Leia gets them interviews with a few news channels, and Rey smiles at the _thought_ of them having to work together. Leia in her suit, eyes wide, having to consort with the _enemy._ Ben tells her how Leia reacted when he came out as a Democrat. She blinked a few times and said, “Am I the only one with a brain around here? HAN! YOUR SON IS A HALF-WITTED NERF HERDER LIKE YOU!” She turned back to Ben. “When people ask, you take after _his_ side of the family.” And walking away, she continued, “Well there goes my ideas for Solo-Solo 2024.” She also didn’t accept the news about his name change with grace, either—“I take back my half-witted comment. You and your father share exactly .10% of a wit between you.” 

However, when Leia finds out about the babies days before the election, she cries. Through the tears, she says, “Thank God, he had some sense to procreate with a conservative woman. Can you tell him to call me? For once?”

The election itself is close. They watch the coverage all day, untraditionally together, their two teams unsure what to do when they fill a small community center. Rose avoids Hux, still angry, but by the end of the night, Rey catches them in a corner drinking and laughing, her sitting in his lap, legs draped over a chair.

The final preliminary results roll in. Ben stays by her side. They breathe, hand in hand. But even though it has been close all night, Rey has prepared herself to what the outcome was always going to be—

Kylo Ren wins. Not by much. But wins nonetheless. 

“Congratulations. Guess a pregnant immigrant was enough to scare my supporters away,” she jokes. “Looks like Hux was right.”

Ben simply shakes his head. “Too close. It was the white male card. Whole district is probably sexist.”

“Sexist, hmm?” she replies, resting her arms on top of his shoulders while he grabs her waist, caressing her belly. “That’s no way to call your supporters.”

“Excuse me, sweetheart. The whole district just _loves_ women and doesn’t think her pregnancy will influence her ability to work _at all.”_

“Your bias is showing.”

“So is their misogyny.”

She kisses him without another word.

* * *

Ben finds her in the babies’ room, painting swatches on the wall, Beethoven loud. Classical music—as soon as she heard that it might be good for the babies, she’d tortured him from the time she rolled out of bed to the time he made love to her at night.

“Didn’t your doctor tell you to leave that to me?” he asks.

“Oh, it’s just a few little areas.” Rey turns around and tears off her mask, face lighting up. Six weeks from her due date, her belly extends far, much farther than that of a single birth. A reminder to him that they aren’t just having _a_ baby but _two._ Double the sleepless nights and dirty diapers. He’s going to be the father of _two_ babies—a boy and a girl.

He takes Rey into his arms, grasps her belly. “Hello, you two. Have you been good for your mom today?”

 _“Mum._ It’s not _that_ hard to say.” She presses on the side of her belly. “This little foot has been kicking me all day.”

When they found out the sexes at eighteen weeks, Rey immediately began picking out paint colors and buying blue and pink things. Ben had raised his eyebrows at the stereotypical choices, but she stuck her bottom lip out and told him it was her dream to have a boy in blue and a girl in pink. She wanted to be wild, too—paint the room half and half. “I don’t care if it’s tacky,” she said.

But the color choices standing before him now are most certainly not pink or blue.

“Gray and purple?” he asks. “Odd choices.”

“Are they?” She rests a finger on her lips, points to a swatch. “I actually quite like this one. A lavender. Sort of a gray-purple. A compromise.”

Ben stares at the walls, imagining. “That sounds perfect.”

And when he paints the room later that week, it is indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it, folks! I may turn this into a full-fledged fic at some point (if the demand and my interest is there), but for now, it is complete! Happy Birthday, again, Rush! You are amazing, and I hope you've enjoyed your gift! If anyone wants to read more of conservative!Rey and liberal!Ben, please read Rush's fic, [Morning Politics](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24874363/chapters/60180472). Her story was the first, that I know of, to feature this swap in political parties for Ben and Rey. 
> 
> Special thank you to [benduo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/benduo/pseuds/benduo) for beta'ing everything but the explicit parts. Your help is so so so appreciated!
> 
> Thanks for reading! Thoughts, praise, constructive criticism? Leave a comment below or contact/follow me on Tumblr: [theaberrantwritergirl](https://theaberrantwritergirl.tumblr.com/)


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